Antonia Fraser
Author of Marie Antoinette: The Journey
About the Author
Antonia Fraser is the author of numerous internationally bestselling biographies, including "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" and "Cromwell: Our Chief of Men". (Publisher Provided)
Image credit: Antonia Fraser en 2022
Series
Works by Antonia Fraser
The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England (1975) — Editor & Introduction — 1,243 copies, 9 reviews
The King and the Catholics: England, Ireland, and the Fight for Religious Freedom, 1780-1829 (2018) 222 copies, 4 reviews
The Pleasure of Reading: 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading and the Books That Inspired Them (2015) — Editor & Introduction — 104 copies, 2 reviews
The Case of the Married Woman: Caroline Norton: A 19th Century Heroine Who Wanted Justice for Women (2021) 62 copies, 1 review
Mary Queen of Scots/Yankee from Olympus: Justice Holmes and His Family (Reader's Digest Great Biographies in Large Type) (1989) — Contributor — 1 copy
Wars of the Roses 1 copy
Jemima Shore 1-8 1 copy
Puppen 1 copy
[Oxford Blood: A Jemima Shore Mystery (Jemima Shore Mysteries (Paperback))] [Author: Fraser, Lady Antonia] [October, 1998] (1998) 1 copy, 1 review
No title 1 copy
Author: Antonia Fraser 1 copy
Cromwell by Antonia Fraser (2001-03-30) — Author — 1 copy
Associated Works
What Might Have Been : Leading Historians on Twelve 'What Ifs' of History (2004) — Contributor — 197 copies, 6 reviews
The Clans of the Scottish Highlands: The Costumes of the Clans (1980) — Foreword — 116 copies, 2 reviews
Women of Mystery II: Stories From Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (1994) — Contributor — 56 copies, 1 review
Great Mystery Series: Top Female Sleuths by 8 of the Best Women Mystery Writers (1991) — Contributor — 6 copies
Reader's Digest World's Greatest Biographies: George Washington | Mary Queen of Scots | Colin Powell (2001) 6 copies
Great Mystery Series: Eight of the Best Mysteries by the Top Women Writers [audiobook] (2000) — Contributor — 3 copies
The execution of Mary Queen of Scots : an eyewitness account by Sir Robert Wingfield of Upton (1587) — Foreword — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Fraser, Antonia
- Legal name
- Fraser, Antonia Margaret Caroline
- Other names
- Fraser, Lady Antonia
Pinter, Lady Antonia
Pakenham, Antonia Margaret Caroline (birth) - Birthdate
- 1932-08-27
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University (BA ∙ 1953 ∙ History)
Dragon School, Oxford
St. Mary's School, Ascot - Occupations
- historian
crime writer
aristocrat
biographer - Organizations
- Weidenfeld & Nicholson
British Crime Writers Association
Sir Walter Scott Club
English PEN
Royal Stuart Society - Awards and honors
- Companion of Honour (2018)
Order of the British Empire (Dame Commander, 2011)
Royal Society of Literature (Fellow, 2003)
Order of the British Empire (Commander, 1999)
Norton Medlicott Medal (2000)
St. Louis Literary Award (1996) (show all 7)
Wolfson History Prize (1984) - Relationships
- Pakenham, Frank, 7th Earl of Longford (father)
Longford, Elizabeth (mother)
Pinter, Harold (second husband)
Fraser, Flora (daughter)
Billington, Rachel (sister)
Pakenham, Thomas Francis Dermot, 8th Earl of Longford (brother) (show all 15)
Kazantzis, Judith (sister)
Fraser-Cavassoni, Natasha (daughter)
Fraser, Rebecca (daughter)
Pakenham, Valerie (sister-in-law)
Powell, Lady Violet (aunt)
Pakenham, Edward (uncle)
Fraser, Sir Hugh (first husband) m.1956-1977
Clive, Mary (aunt)
Lamb, Lady Pansy (aunt) - Short biography
- Lady Antonia Fraser, née Pakenham, was born in London to an aristocratic English family. Her mother was the distinguished biography Elizabeth Longford. She was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, St. Mary's School, Ascot, and Oxford University. She is the author of major historical biographies, including Mary, Queen of Scots (1969), The Weaker Vessel (1984) and The Wives of Henry VIII (1996), as well as a popular mystery series featuring British television personality and investigative journalist Jemima Shore. She is a past chairman of the British Crime Writers Association. Lady Antonia married her second husband, the late Harold Pinter, in 1980, and is sometimes known as Lady Antonia Pinter. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2011.
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- London, England, UK
- Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Discussions
BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE JUNE - FRASER & CONRAD in 75 Books Challenge for 2016 (December 2016)
Reviews
The life and death of Mary Stuart remains one of the most movingly tragic life stories I know. More than fifty-five years after publication, and forty years after I picked up a copy at a library sale but only now got around to reading, Antonia Fraser’s biography is apparently still the best “life and times” for the general reader. Fraser provides a readable narrative, covering Mary’s mistakes yet remaining overall sympathetic. As far as I can tell, she also did an impressive amount show more of research, resulting in a detailed narrative that runs 555 pages without counting an appendix, notes, and index. That makes for a thick book, perhaps one reason it took me so long to set aside the time to read it. And even now, I’ll confess I skimmed her discussion of the casket letters, crucial though they are to how one views Mary. I took in enough of Fraser’s discussion to trust her conclusion at the end of the chapter.
Fraser presents Mary as an attractive personality. She had barely been born when her father died, making her queen of Scotland. Her actual reign was brief, though, starting when she returned, still a teenager, as the widowed dowager queen of France. It did not go well, but what are you to do if you are destined by birth to rule an ungovernable country?
Perhaps Mary’s worst blunder was when she escaped her Scottish imprisonment and fled to England rather than France. This presented her cousin Elizabeth with an intractable problem whose solution seems inevitable in retrospect. For Many was, in addition to being the deposed queen of Scotland and the dowager queen of France, the next in line to the throne of England. A fatal complication was that Mary was Catholic. Thus, in the eyes of all the English who clung to the old faith, she—and not the excommunicated Elizabeth— already was the legitimate queen. As long as Mary remained alive, she was thus a factor in every plot to assassinate Elizabeth.
This led to framing a law that made not only assassins but also those in whose name they concocted their plots guilty of treason. Clearly, the law was meant to bring the downfall of only one person, leading to a trial that Fraser calls “one of the strangest judicial proceedings in the history of the British Isles.”
In a chapter entitled “The Uses of Adversity,” Fraser describes how Mary’s character was deepened by the long years of captivity in ways typical of the long line of imprisoned philosopher-monarchs. She also shows how Mary ensured that the death she knew she could not escape would fit the pattern of “the classic Christian manner of martyrdom and triumph.”
To that extent, Mary won. Her execution remains a blot on Elizabeth’s reputation. Meanwhile, as Fraser points out, all subsequent British monarchs, beginning with Mary’s son James, have descended from her, not Elizabeth.
My only reservation about Fraser’s portrayal of this remarkable person is that Mary comes off as more modern than the times in which she lived. She is clearly Fraser’s kind of Catholic — tolerant, discrete, yet unwavering. Fraser’s sympathy for Mary makes not only Elizabeth but even more so Scottish reformer John Knox inimical to her. Perhaps Fraser has accurately depicted Mary (she presents her case convincingly). But it’s also true that biographies inform us not only about their subjects but also about their authors. show less
Fraser presents Mary as an attractive personality. She had barely been born when her father died, making her queen of Scotland. Her actual reign was brief, though, starting when she returned, still a teenager, as the widowed dowager queen of France. It did not go well, but what are you to do if you are destined by birth to rule an ungovernable country?
Perhaps Mary’s worst blunder was when she escaped her Scottish imprisonment and fled to England rather than France. This presented her cousin Elizabeth with an intractable problem whose solution seems inevitable in retrospect. For Many was, in addition to being the deposed queen of Scotland and the dowager queen of France, the next in line to the throne of England. A fatal complication was that Mary was Catholic. Thus, in the eyes of all the English who clung to the old faith, she—and not the excommunicated Elizabeth— already was the legitimate queen. As long as Mary remained alive, she was thus a factor in every plot to assassinate Elizabeth.
This led to framing a law that made not only assassins but also those in whose name they concocted their plots guilty of treason. Clearly, the law was meant to bring the downfall of only one person, leading to a trial that Fraser calls “one of the strangest judicial proceedings in the history of the British Isles.”
In a chapter entitled “The Uses of Adversity,” Fraser describes how Mary’s character was deepened by the long years of captivity in ways typical of the long line of imprisoned philosopher-monarchs. She also shows how Mary ensured that the death she knew she could not escape would fit the pattern of “the classic Christian manner of martyrdom and triumph.”
To that extent, Mary won. Her execution remains a blot on Elizabeth’s reputation. Meanwhile, as Fraser points out, all subsequent British monarchs, beginning with Mary’s son James, have descended from her, not Elizabeth.
My only reservation about Fraser’s portrayal of this remarkable person is that Mary comes off as more modern than the times in which she lived. She is clearly Fraser’s kind of Catholic — tolerant, discrete, yet unwavering. Fraser’s sympathy for Mary makes not only Elizabeth but even more so Scottish reformer John Knox inimical to her. Perhaps Fraser has accurately depicted Mary (she presents her case convincingly). But it’s also true that biographies inform us not only about their subjects but also about their authors. show less
I finished Fraser's truly awful Warrior Queens today. She jumps back and forth between time periods constantly, keeps trying to relate every woman she writes about to Boudica and her legend, is in love with her own lame terminology, and dedicates a lot of ink to speculation. I can't even say that I trust her research since in chapter 14 she calls Pocahontas "a member of the Sioux tribe": I don't have words enough to say how wrong this statement is.*
Avoid this one at all costs.
*Seriously, show more it's like saying Eleanor of Aquitaine was Polish. show less
Avoid this one at all costs.
*Seriously, show more it's like saying Eleanor of Aquitaine was Polish. show less
[Lady] Antonia Fraser, married to the playwright Harold Pinter (now deceased) and so forming a formidable intellectual household, is a popular narrative historian who is always highly readable and never patronising. She entertains as she educates and never talks down to her reader.
In this book, she looks at a theme rather than a period, centring the story of warrior queens in reality and in legend initially on a tale familar to the British, Boadicea (or Boudicca if you prefer), but extending show more her analysis to a series of strong women in history who meet her criteria.
She moves effortlessly from first century AD Britain to such interesting characters as Zenobia of Palmyra, Matilda (or Maud) who fought for the throne of England with Stephen, Tamara of Georgia, Isabella of Castile and many others through to a comparison with Mrs Thatcher.
She does not neglect other continents with chapters both on Jinga of the Ndongo in Africa and the Rani of Jhansi in the British Raj. She allows comparison and contrast - political successes like Elizabeth I with noble failures like Matilda of Tuscany and complete failures like Louise of Prussia.
Fraser is one of those writers who might be called feminist if the term had not been destroyed as a positive one by a generation of grievance specialists and moral fanatics who sit as part of that exercise in group-think that purports to be the Western Left.
She is to be regarded as a strong voice for the female point of view without a collapse into ideology. She sits alongside Simone de Beauvoir, Camille Paglia and, in my view, Virginie Despentes as someone who gives voice to women and makes men stop, think and, when necessary, change.
Above all, she is an excellent historian. I cannot think of one occasion where I felt I had to dispute a judgement she makes on the evidence placed before her. She thinks in the round, able to see how her narrative relates to culture and society then and now (1988 in this case).
When she points out the sometimes absurd manner in which a largely male culture has reconstructed these women - often too positively it might be said because of the chivalric impulse or the will to believe in a 'queen' or 'goddess'- she does so without moralising.
It has some useful insights into male absurdity and is more useful in pointing out that women are capable of anything (should they choose to want to do anything) than all the dull or shrill tracts thrown at men in outrage or bitterness.
I will be gifting this book to my daughter as an exemplar of good writing and sound historical sense but it is not just a feel-good book for women (which I hope it will be), it is also a book that any man can profit from reading. I recommend it on that basis alone. show less
In this book, she looks at a theme rather than a period, centring the story of warrior queens in reality and in legend initially on a tale familar to the British, Boadicea (or Boudicca if you prefer), but extending show more her analysis to a series of strong women in history who meet her criteria.
She moves effortlessly from first century AD Britain to such interesting characters as Zenobia of Palmyra, Matilda (or Maud) who fought for the throne of England with Stephen, Tamara of Georgia, Isabella of Castile and many others through to a comparison with Mrs Thatcher.
She does not neglect other continents with chapters both on Jinga of the Ndongo in Africa and the Rani of Jhansi in the British Raj. She allows comparison and contrast - political successes like Elizabeth I with noble failures like Matilda of Tuscany and complete failures like Louise of Prussia.
Fraser is one of those writers who might be called feminist if the term had not been destroyed as a positive one by a generation of grievance specialists and moral fanatics who sit as part of that exercise in group-think that purports to be the Western Left.
She is to be regarded as a strong voice for the female point of view without a collapse into ideology. She sits alongside Simone de Beauvoir, Camille Paglia and, in my view, Virginie Despentes as someone who gives voice to women and makes men stop, think and, when necessary, change.
Above all, she is an excellent historian. I cannot think of one occasion where I felt I had to dispute a judgement she makes on the evidence placed before her. She thinks in the round, able to see how her narrative relates to culture and society then and now (1988 in this case).
When she points out the sometimes absurd manner in which a largely male culture has reconstructed these women - often too positively it might be said because of the chivalric impulse or the will to believe in a 'queen' or 'goddess'- she does so without moralising.
It has some useful insights into male absurdity and is more useful in pointing out that women are capable of anything (should they choose to want to do anything) than all the dull or shrill tracts thrown at men in outrage or bitterness.
I will be gifting this book to my daughter as an exemplar of good writing and sound historical sense but it is not just a feel-good book for women (which I hope it will be), it is also a book that any man can profit from reading. I recommend it on that basis alone. show less
The great danger for a biographer is to become too fond of her subject. I can't help but feel that that happened to Antonia Fraser here.
There is no question but that the future King Charles II had a difficult upbringing -- caught up while still a teenager in the Civil War, with his father executed when he was 18, leaving Charles a king in exile, trying to find a way to survive with no money and no real friends and no obvious prospects, Then, suddenly, restored to the throne as he entered his show more thirties. A less resilient man would have surely become far more neurotic, likely seeing threats everywhere. Charles, instead, became a courageous, affable, personally tolerant man.
He was also lazy, a determined liar, a cheat, and a man with little willingness to plan for the future. And, at a time when Louis XIV of France was threatening to take over Europe, he largely aided and abetted the efforts -- a failing that would leave his successors fighting against Louis for a third of a century.
And there were the mistresses, and the bastards. This is not me getting holier-than-Charles. English kings had had bastard children before -- Henry I was said to have some three dozen illegitimate children, and Edward IV kept a rotating stable of three mistresses. Charles was relatively restrained; he usually had only one woman-on-the-side at a time. But Henry and Edward hadn't raised their mistresses to the upper peerage -- hadn't even done particularly much for their children. Charles made several of his mistresses duchesses, and their children dukes. This represented a big strain on an over-extended treasury, and it didn't really do anyone any good. It also did long-term damage to the House of Lords. Had Charles just given them a few manors and made them gentry, the kids would still have been ahead of the game and England would have had a lot more money for useful projects.
And Charles's treatment of Scotland and Ireland was simply bad, forcing the Duke of Lauderdale on the former and trying to use the latter as a source of money and land when there just wasn't any available. Having spent time in Scotland at the beginning of his exile, he clearly wanted as little as possible to do with it thereafter.
But Charles's worst failing regarded the succession. Charles had no legitimate children, so his heir was his brother, the future James II. Who was Catholic, which was bad enough, but who was also (much, much worse) Ye Standard Stuart -- i.e. very stupid, very bigoted, and very convinced that he was neither and that he had the divine right of kings. James was, predictably, overthrown three years after Charles II died. Charles could have prevented it -- Parliament had repeatedly tried to take up Exclusion, to try to keep James off the throne, and Charles had prorogued or dissolved the parliament, and taken a subsidy from Louis XIV, to prevent Exclusion from happening. Maybe Charles's tricks would have been worth it had James II been a better man -- but, remember, James was overthrown in 1688, and the very Exclusion law that Charles had opposed became a major part of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689. The Glorious Revolution was unquestionably good -- a second Magna Carta, in a way. But Charles could have brought much of it about without the bloodshed, if he'd been willing to do the work.
There are good things about him -- e.g. he founded the Royal Society (a fact that Fraser perhaps under-plays -- at least, it seems so to me as someone with scientific training). And his faults don't change the fact that Charles was mostly loved by the people, and came to look even better in hindsight, given that his successors were the tyrant James II, the dour William III, the neurotic Anne, and the lumpish George I. But, remember, Charles could have short-cut around all that agony. And this book never really addresses his failure to do so.
There are other ways in which this book is too prone to accept the common opinion. Take the oldest of Charles's illegitimate sons, who eventually became the Duke of Monmouth. Monmouth opposed Charles's pro-James policies (in other words, was on the right side of history), was pushed into rebellion against James II in 1685, and was defeated and executed. Fraser takes the view that Monmouth was a handsome, shallow, useless tool of others. It is certainly true that he was manipulated into his rebellion. But, prior to that, he had undertaken useful military reforms, and had crushed a Scottish rebellion at Bothwell Bridge with both firmness and leniency. I've read three different studies of Monmouth's life and rebellion, and every one of them finds him to have been a better man than Fraser makes him.
Charles II was a very good man during the first half of his life -- the years of adversity. He lost much of that virtue in his years of prosperity. And Fraser never seems to notice the change. show less
There is no question but that the future King Charles II had a difficult upbringing -- caught up while still a teenager in the Civil War, with his father executed when he was 18, leaving Charles a king in exile, trying to find a way to survive with no money and no real friends and no obvious prospects, Then, suddenly, restored to the throne as he entered his show more thirties. A less resilient man would have surely become far more neurotic, likely seeing threats everywhere. Charles, instead, became a courageous, affable, personally tolerant man.
He was also lazy, a determined liar, a cheat, and a man with little willingness to plan for the future. And, at a time when Louis XIV of France was threatening to take over Europe, he largely aided and abetted the efforts -- a failing that would leave his successors fighting against Louis for a third of a century.
And there were the mistresses, and the bastards. This is not me getting holier-than-Charles. English kings had had bastard children before -- Henry I was said to have some three dozen illegitimate children, and Edward IV kept a rotating stable of three mistresses. Charles was relatively restrained; he usually had only one woman-on-the-side at a time. But Henry and Edward hadn't raised their mistresses to the upper peerage -- hadn't even done particularly much for their children. Charles made several of his mistresses duchesses, and their children dukes. This represented a big strain on an over-extended treasury, and it didn't really do anyone any good. It also did long-term damage to the House of Lords. Had Charles just given them a few manors and made them gentry, the kids would still have been ahead of the game and England would have had a lot more money for useful projects.
And Charles's treatment of Scotland and Ireland was simply bad, forcing the Duke of Lauderdale on the former and trying to use the latter as a source of money and land when there just wasn't any available. Having spent time in Scotland at the beginning of his exile, he clearly wanted as little as possible to do with it thereafter.
But Charles's worst failing regarded the succession. Charles had no legitimate children, so his heir was his brother, the future James II. Who was Catholic, which was bad enough, but who was also (much, much worse) Ye Standard Stuart -- i.e. very stupid, very bigoted, and very convinced that he was neither and that he had the divine right of kings. James was, predictably, overthrown three years after Charles II died. Charles could have prevented it -- Parliament had repeatedly tried to take up Exclusion, to try to keep James off the throne, and Charles had prorogued or dissolved the parliament, and taken a subsidy from Louis XIV, to prevent Exclusion from happening. Maybe Charles's tricks would have been worth it had James II been a better man -- but, remember, James was overthrown in 1688, and the very Exclusion law that Charles had opposed became a major part of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689. The Glorious Revolution was unquestionably good -- a second Magna Carta, in a way. But Charles could have brought much of it about without the bloodshed, if he'd been willing to do the work.
There are good things about him -- e.g. he founded the Royal Society (a fact that Fraser perhaps under-plays -- at least, it seems so to me as someone with scientific training). And his faults don't change the fact that Charles was mostly loved by the people, and came to look even better in hindsight, given that his successors were the tyrant James II, the dour William III, the neurotic Anne, and the lumpish George I. But, remember, Charles could have short-cut around all that agony. And this book never really addresses his failure to do so.
There are other ways in which this book is too prone to accept the common opinion. Take the oldest of Charles's illegitimate sons, who eventually became the Duke of Monmouth. Monmouth opposed Charles's pro-James policies (in other words, was on the right side of history), was pushed into rebellion against James II in 1685, and was defeated and executed. Fraser takes the view that Monmouth was a handsome, shallow, useless tool of others. It is certainly true that he was manipulated into his rebellion. But, prior to that, he had undertaken useful military reforms, and had crushed a Scottish rebellion at Bothwell Bridge with both firmness and leniency. I've read three different studies of Monmouth's life and rebellion, and every one of them finds him to have been a better man than Fraser makes him.
Charles II was a very good man during the first half of his life -- the years of adversity. He lost much of that virtue in his years of prosperity. And Fraser never seems to notice the change. show less
Lists
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THE WAR ROOM (1)
1960s (1)
Roman Britain (1)
Best Biographies (1)
Female Author (2)
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 83
- Also by
- 58
- Members
- 22,547
- Popularity
- #942
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 327
- ISBNs
- 657
- Languages
- 15
- Favorited
- 71
